Monographs & Translations
-
Creatures of Cain
Erika Lorraine Milam, Creatures of Cain: The Hunt for Human Nature in Cold War America (Princeton University Press, 2019).
MONOGRAPH
Awarded the History of Science Society’s Suzanne J. Levinson Prize (2020)
-
Looking for a Few Good Males
Erika Lorraine Milam, Looking for a Few Good Males: Female Choice in Evolutionary Biology (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).
MONOGRAPH
-
Zopár Správnych Chlapov
Erika Lorraine Milam, Zopár Správnych Chlapov: Ženský výber v evolučnej biológii, trans. Daniel Levicky Archleb (Bratislava: Hadart Publishing, 2019).
Looking for a Few Good Males — TRANSLATION - Slovak
-
众里寻他 - 挑剔的雌性生物
Erika Lorraine Milam, 众里寻他-挑剔的雌性生物, trans. LI Liang and HOU Dongxia (Liaoning Science and Technology Press, 2024).
Looking for a Few Good Males — TRANSLATION - Chinese
Edited Volumes & Special Issues
-
Abundance & Loss
Erika Milam, Banu Subramaniam, and Etienne Benson, eds. Abundance and Loss: Historical Perspectives on Diversity and Nature. Forthcoming as Osiris Vol. 42, 2027).
EDITED VOLUME
-
Descent of Darwin
Erika Lorraine Milam and Suman Seth, eds. Descent of Darwin: Sex, Race, and Human Nature, BJHS Themes 6 (2021).
EDITED VOLUME
-
Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50
Erika Lorraine Milam, ed. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 50/1-2 (2020): 1-89.
SPECIAL ISSUE
-
Histories of the Future
co-organized / co-edited with Joanna Radin and Fred Gibbs
A collaborative WEBSITE exploring historical theories of the future of the cosmos, nature, technology, & humanity (2016).
-
Scientific Masculinities
Erika Lorraine Milam and Robert A. Nye, eds. Scientific Masculinities (Osiris 30, 2015), 302 pp.
EDITED VOLUME
-
Science in the Public Eye
Erika Lorraine Milam and Deborah Weinstein, eds. “Science in the Public Eye,” Endeavour 40/4 (2016): 223-267.
SPECIAL ISSUE
-
Peculiar Persistence of the Naturalistic Fallacy
Erika Lorraine Milam, ed. FOCUS: Peculiar Persistence of the Naturalistic Fallacy, Isis 105/3 (2014).
SPECIAL ISSUE
-
50 Years of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Michael Gordin and Erika Lorraine Milam, eds. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 42/5 (2012): 476-580.
SPECIAL ISSUE
Articles, Chapters, & Essays
-
Research Articles
2023 “Periodical Cicadas and the Abundance of Time,” in Hansun Hsiung, Laetitia Lenel, and Anna-Maria Meister, eds. “Entangled Temporalities,” Journal of the History of Knowledge 4 (2023): 101-122. [link]
2022 “Landscapes of Time: Building Long-Term Perspectives in Animal Behavior,” in Sophia Gräfe and Cora Stuhrmann, eds. “Historicizing Ethology: Methods, Sites, and Dynamics of an Unbound Discipline,” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 45, no. 1-2, pp. 164-188. [link]
2022 “Making Place in the Field,” [Focus: Fields] ed. Etienne Benson and Cameron Brinitzer, Isis 113, no. 1, pp. 121-127. [link]
-
Research Articles and Chapters
2023, “Secular Grace in the Age of Environmentalism,” in Myrna Perez Sheldon, Ahmed Ragab, and Terence Keel, eds. Critical Approaches to Science and Religion (New York: Columbia University Press), 207-229. [link]
2019 "Old Woman and the Sea: Evolution and the Feminine Aquatic,” in Amanda Rees and Iwan Rhys Morus, eds. Presenting Futures Past: Science Fiction and the History of Science, Osiris Vol. 34 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 198-215. [link]
2016 "Science of the Sexy Beast: Biological Masculinities and the Playboy Lifestyle," in Groovy Science: The Counterculture's Embrace of Science in the Long 1970s, ed. David Kaiser and W. Patrick McCray (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 270-302. [.pdf]
2015 co-authored with Robert A. Nye, "Introduction," in Scientific Masculinities, ed. Erika Lorraine Milam and Robert A. Nye, Osiris vol. 30 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1-14. [.pdf]
2015 "Men in Groups: Anthropology and Aggression, 1965-1975," in Scientific Masculinities, ed. Erika Lorraine Milam and Robert A. Nye, Osiris vol. 30 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 66-88. [.pdf]
2013 “Dunking the Tarzanists: Elaine Morgan and the Aquatic Ape Theory,” in Outsider Scientists: Routes to Innovation in Biology, ed. Oren Harman and Michael R. Dietrich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 223-247. [.pdf]
2012 “Making Males Aggressive and Females Coy: Gender Across the Animal-Human Boundary,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 37(4): 935-959. [.pdf]
2010 “Beauty and the Beast: Conceptualizing Sex in Evolutionary Narratives,” in Biology and Ideology--From Descartes to Dawkins, ed. Denis Alexander and Ronald Numbers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 276-301. [.pdf]
Public-Facing Essays & Interviews
2025 with Webb Keane, “Sensing the Social: Anthropology’s Peculiar Way of Knowing,” The Immanent Frame (12 October 2025) [link]
2024 “The Jane Goodalls,” in the Meanings of Science series for The Marginalia Review of Books (27 September 2024). [link]
2021 “Tarzan Wasn’t for Her,” Nautilus (02 June 2021). [link]
2018 “Frankenstein and the Scientific Self,” in Frankenstein at 200, ed. Corinna Treitel, The Common Reader 3(2): 23-35. [link]
2013 “Elaine Morgan Obituary,” The Guardian (July 29, 2013). [link]
2013 “Elaine Morgan and the Aquatic Ape,” guest blog post for Rebekah Higgitt and Vanessa Heggie's The H-Word, hosted by The Guardian (May 13, 2013). [link]
-
Research Articles and Chapters
Forthcoming “Mid-Century Monkey: Engraving Humanity’s Alienation from Nature in the 1950s,” Configurations 36, no. 1 (~2028).
2022 “The Rise of Darwinian Literalism,” in Ian Hesketh, ed. Beyond the Darwinian Revolution: Historicizing Evolution from the Past to the Present (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press), 235-250, notes 302-308.
2021 co-authored with Suman Seth, “Introduction to Descent of Darwin,” in Erika Lorraine Milam and Suman Seth, eds. Descent of Darwin: Sex, Race, and Human Nature, BJHS Themes 6: 1-8. [link]
2021 “The Evolution of Darwinian Sexualities,” in Erika Lorraine Milam and Suman Seth, eds. Descent of Darwin: Sex, Race, and Human Nature, BJHS Themes 6: 133-155. [link]
2015 "Myth 14: After Darwin, sexual selection was neglected for almost a century, until its resurrection by Robert Trivers," in Newton's Apple and Other Myths About Science, ed. Ronald Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 113-118, notes 246-249. [.pdf]
2010 “The Equally Wonderful Field: Ernst Mayr and Organismic Biology,” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 40(3): 279-317. [.pdf]
2009 “‘The Experimental Animal from the Naturalist’s Point of View’: Evolution and Behavior at the AMNH, 1928-1954,” in Descended from Darwin: Insights into American Evolutionary Studies, 1900-1970 , ed. Joe Cain and Michael Ruse (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, Transactions, Volume 99, Part 1): 157-178. [.pdf]
Public-Facing Essays & Interviews
2011 “Appealing Choice,” The Scientist 25/1 (January 2011): 64. [link]
2020 Daniel Levický Archleb, “Rozhovor: Erika L. Milam - Zopár správnych chlapov,” SME Kultúra (22 January 2020). [link, in Slovak]
-
Research Articles and Essays
2021 “Theorizing the Inhumanity of Human Nature, 1955-1985,” in Maria Kronfeldner, ed. Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization (New York: Routledge), 112-124. [link]
2019 “The Stigmata of Ancestry: Reinvigorating the Conflict Thesis in the American 1970s,” in Bernard Lightman, ed. Rethinking History, Science, and Religion: An Exploration of Conflict and the Complexity Principle (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press), 19-36, notes 244-50. [.pdf]
2016 "The Ascent of Man and the Politics of Humanity's Future," Endeavour 40(4): 225-237. [.pdf]
2014 “A Field Study of Con Games,” Isis 105(3): 596-605. [link]
2013 “Public Science of the Savage Mind: Contesting Cultural Anthropology in the Cold War Classroom,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 49(3): 306-330. [.pdf]
2011 “Object Lesson: Salmon, Gulls, and Baboons? Oh My,” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 4(3): 361-367. [.pdf]
Public-Facing Essays & Interviews
2021 “Roundtable with Erika Milam,” with Matthew Goodrum, Georgina Montgomery, and Marga Vicedo, History of Science Society Newsletter (July 2021).
2018 “The Hunt for Human Nature,” Aeon (08 November 2018). [link]
Reviews
-
2023 “Birds of a Feather,” review of Richard O. Prum, Performance All the Way Down: Genes, Development, and Sexual Difference (University of Chicago Press, 2023), Science 382 (6671): 652.
2021 “Darwin and Human Evolution,” review of Jeremy M. DeSilva, ed. A Most Interesting Problem: What Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Right and Wrong About Human Evolution (Princeton University Press, 2021), Science 371 (6527): 353.
2020 Review of Robert E. Kohler, Inside Science: Stories from the Field in Human and Animal Science (University of Chicago Press, 2019), American Historical Review 125 (3): 989-990.
2020 “The Will to Act,” Review of Nathaniel Rich, Losing Earth: A Recent History (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), Science 368 (6494): 956.
2019 “Masculinity Molecule, Debunked,” review of Rebecca M. Jordan-Young and Katrina Karkazis, Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography (Harvard University Press, 2019), Science 366 (6465): 579.
*Translated into French as “Les stéréotypes ont la vie dure,” trans. Alexandre Lévy, Books no. 105 (March 2020): 19-21.
2018 “The Aesthetics of Evolution,” with Kimberly Hamlin, Theirry Hoquet, and Evelleen Richards, a symposium review of Evelleen Richards, Darwin and the Making of Sexual Selection (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Metascience 27 (3): 389-420.
2017 “Idiosyncratic Desires,” review of Richard O. Prum, The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us (Doubleday, 2017), Science 356 (6341): 915.
2015 “Understanding Our Origins,” review of Ian Tattersall, The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack: and Other Cautionary Tales from Human Evolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Science 348 (6239): 1098.
2014 Review of Liv Emma Thorsen, Karen A. Rader, Adam Dodds, eds. Animals on Display: The Creaturely in Museums, Zoos, and Natural History (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), Isis 105 (4): 835-836.
2014 Review of Sarah Richardson, Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome (University of Chicago Press, 2013), Journal of the History of Biology 47 (2): 329-331.
2013 “Pluralistic Paradigms,” review of Helen E. Longino, Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality (University of Chicago Press, 2013), Science 340 (6129): 146.
2012 Review of Heather M. Prescott, The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States (Rutgers University Press, 2011), Isis 103 (3): 620-621.
2012 Review of Bernd Heinrich, The Nesting Season: Cuckoos, Cuckolds, and the Invention of Monogamy (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), Journal of the History of Biology 45 (2): 361-363.
2012 “On Playing Well with Others,” essay review of Frans de Waal, Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society (New York: Harmony Books, 2009) and Michael Tomasello, Why We Cooperate (MIT Press, 2009), BioSocieties 7 (1): 93-97.
2011 “Sex and Sensibility: The Role of Social Selection,” with Angela Potochnik, Roberta Millstein, and Joan Roughgarden, a symposium review of Joan Roughgarden, The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness (University of California Press, 2009), Metascience 20 (2): 253-277.
2011 Review of Rebecca Jordan-Young, Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences (Harvard University Press, 2010), Journal of the History of Biology 44 (1): 163-165.
2010 Review of Brian Boyd, On the Origins of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction (Harvard University Press, 2009), History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 32 (1): 135-136.
2008 Review of Miriam Reumann, American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender, and National Identity in the Kinsey Reports (University of California Press, 2005), Journal of the History of Biology 41 (1): 197-199.
2007 Review of Charlotte Sleigh, Six Legs Better: A Cultural History of Myrmecology (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), Journal of the History of Biology 40 (4): 770-772.
2006 “Sometimes an Orgasm is Just an Orgasm,” with Gillian Brown, Stefan Lindquist, Steve Fuller, and Elisabeth Lloyd, a symposium review of Elisabeth A. Lloyd, The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution (Harvard University Press, 2005), Metascience 15 (3): 399-435.
2006 Review of Ron Amundson, The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought: Roots of Evo-Devo (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology, 2005), Journal of the History of Biology 39 (3): 630-632.